


The Right Words Aren't Always Words

by dream_vs_nightmare



Category: Forever (TV), Once Upon a Time (TV)
Genre: AU, F/M, Gremma, Henry still ships the thing, Mortinez, immortal!Graham
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2015-12-26
Updated: 2015-12-26
Packaged: 2018-05-09 10:50:03
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,996
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/5537135
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/dream_vs_nightmare/pseuds/dream_vs_nightmare
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>She was just going to kiss Graham Humbert. Her legs are tangled up in Lucy’s leash, her curls are windblown from the ocean air, and she’s bloody freezing from the cold - but she was just going to kiss this impossible man.</p><p>The funny thing is, his eyes had flickered closed like maybe, just maybe, he was going to kiss her, too.</p><p>Emma, Graham, Henry, Jo, and the absence of words.</p>
            </blockquote>





	The Right Words Aren't Always Words

**Author's Note:**

  * For [arianakristine](https://archiveofourown.org/users/arianakristine/gifts).



> For the Gremma Secret Santa event on tumblr, and written for one phoebefradys. I was never able to figure out what you requested, but I hope this finds you just as well! It's a companion piece to Sometimes, In Love, but can be read as a standalone too.
> 
> Or, the one where Graham is (alive and) immortal, and Emma discovers that he may or may not have a four-legged immortal companion. At an antique's shop across the East River, an M.E. and an NYPD Detective discover that sometimes, the right words aren't really always words at all.
> 
> Not familiar with one of these shows? I gotchu, fam.
> 
> What you should know from OUAT: Emma and her son, Henry, are magically given new memories as they leave a crumbling Storybrooke, Maine (which happens to be a magical, cursed town. Iunno man, I'm not the one who writes the scripts.)
> 
> They're not supposed to remember anything from their lives in Maine, but somehow, someway, Emma remembers Sheriff Graham (who, spoiler alert, died early on into the first season and their budding romance).
> 
> What you should know from Forever: Henry Morgan is the chief M.E. for the NYPD. He's also over two hundred years old, immortal, and comes back to life in water, stark naked, every time he dies. Jo Martinez is his partner and close friend, who, over the course of about a year, discovers that Henry's hiding something from her. They solve cases together, aided by Henry's endless memories of his past, and gradually fall a little bit in love with each other the longer they work together.
> 
> Long author's note is long and ending now. Hope you enjoy!

  

* * *

 

“Seriously?” She asks as Graham sprints right on past her, chasing a blur of motion she imagines is his dog. She didn’t know he _had_ a dog, but she supposes the German Shepherd he’s tailing could be the neighbor’s kid's…or his ex girlfriend's. He turns to look at her a second, and the half-smile on his lips as he mouths “seriously”, softens the sting of that earlier thought. She’s not supposed to have any feelings for him, just like he’s not supposed to be here. But he is and she does. Oh, she does.

So she takes off running, catching up to his stride with time enough to spot Man’s Best Friend making a break for it. And the East River.

_“What the hell?”_

He looks to her with that same wry smile from a few weeks before and murmurs, “Lucy’s uh…well, she’s a rather adept swimmer.”

“An adept swimmer, huh?” Emma echoes with a knowing grin on her lips, to which Graham just kisses her temple and says that he’ll explain in the car. The gesture reminds her of before, somehow, but she can’t quite place why. It’s like he touches her and her whole body warms, source of it emanating from the bracelet wrapped tight ‘round her wrist. She doesn’t understand it any more than he understands his ‘condition’, and she treats it like the terrifying blank that is the rest of her life - she doesn't think about it too long, too hard, and moves on.

“She fell into the water with me, tried to shield me from the bullets.” He says, then, eyes dark and almost haunted with something as they jog the last few remaining yards to the water line.

Well, Graham jogs. Emma stops dead in her tracks and blinks once, twice, as her brain tries to process what he’s just said.

_Water. Shield. Bullets._

Her mind catches and snags on that last one, _bullets_ , and stays there a while as Graham coaxes a soaked Lucy back into her collar and onto her leash. It’s easy-going from there like it always is with him. Everything’s always _so easy_ with Graham that sometimes, she almost forgets. She almost forgets how impossible they are, how impossible he is, but then he speaks about his past with that distant, haunted look in his eyes - and she can do nothing but remember.

He chances a glance back at the water a moment as they walk back to the car, eyes darkening with that same haunted something from a minute ago.

But he still gives her his usual shake of the head and ghost of a smile when he says, “It’s a long story.”

“I’ve still got those blankets stashed in my car, y’know.” Emma says around a smile that skips right over innocent and lingers on teasing, coy. Because while she's got more than enough time for a story, however long, she'd much rather put all those blankets to a different use. Lucy barks, then, as if to remind the two of them that yes, she’s still here, and definitely more in need of those blankets than they are.

So Emma just leans in close, words kissing the stubbled line of his jaw as she adds, “But I think our friend here _might_ get to them first…”

Graham exhales long into the afternoon, breath warm against her cheek as his hand finds her arm - almost hesitant, a touch unsure. She thinks that's one of the things she likes about him so goddamn much: he touches her like she's magic, like she's starlight. Like he doesn't care if he gets burned in her wake, but isn't sure that he's worthy of laying a finger on her. But he is. Oh, he is.

There’s a certain sort of magic in moments like these, really - soft and warm and almost sweet. The girls at work keep bets on how he kisses, on how he tastes. Sometimes she thinks she knows exactly how he kisses, how he tastes, but then the memory falls away from her like that of a fast-fading dream. She wants to learn again, wants to remember. So she meets him halfway, a smile on her lips just as she leans up to his lips-

And that’s when Doctor McBritish decides to show up and ruin the moment. He’s there as soon as he isn’t, and his hair hangs wet across his forehead even though he's dressed to the nines. Emma nearly snorts at his timing.

She thinks he murmurs some apology or another for interrupting them, sounding terribly British about the whole thing. She also thinks he says something entirely different to Graham, something that sounds a lot like, “Sometimes, in love, the rights words aren’t words at all”, but she’s not really listening at this point.

Because she was just going to kiss Graham Humbert. Her legs are tangled up in Lucy’s leash, her curls are windblown from the ocean air, and she’s bloody freezing from the cold - but she was just going to kiss this impossible man.

The funny thing is, his eyes had flickered closed like maybe, just maybe, he was going to kiss her, too. And that whispers of before, too - before her life in New York, before she'd started over again. There’s something there, in _before_ , and the skin beneath her bracelet warms at the thought of it. At what they might’ve been, then. And maybe, at what they could still become, now. She wonders if he remembers _before_ , sometimes, if that's why he looks so haunted at the mention of certain names, certain cities. Maybe he does, a little. And maybe, just maybe,  he remembers her a little, too.

Going for coffee _had_ changed things, and he had told her his story. Or at least, he'd told her as much as she could handle in one sitting. The whole thing would've sounded kind of impossible coming from anyone else. And he'd known that, he'd known and asked her to use her superpower. To see if he was lying, if he was making the whole thing up. And she'd had to look away from him after a long moment, because he wasn't. He wasn't and it was impossible. So she'd just told him that believing in something doesn't make it true, and he'd just smiled again and said that he'd had a long time to start.

She's still not sure that she believes him, but she's at least willing to try. That's a big deal for her, because she's used to running when things get difficult, when things get scary. But this thing between them, this magic...it doesn't scare her. It's ridiculous, yeah, but it doesn't scare her. So going for coffee really had changed things, because belief...well, it's not her thing. And she's kind of glad for that change, all these weeks later. She's not, however, glad for Lucy shaking out her coat all over the two of them.

* * *

He does end up telling her the story once they get back to her apartment - and it’s not as long as she’d thought. Even so, though, he stays long into the afternoon and well into the night after he's done with his tale. And she finds that she doesn't mind in the least bit. He makes grilled cheese and tomato soup for them around lunchtime, and it gives her some time to process things. It's just...well, it's _weird_. It's weird and impossible and doesn't make the smallest bit of sense, but she tries to believe it as best she can. And she thinks that's something like progress, trying to believe in something she can't see.

They’re halfway into their meal when the power surges, then goes out, plunging the whole apartment into darkness. They keep the deep shadows of the room at bay with some matches and votive candles. And as for warmth, well, the radiator’s bound to stay warm for a good while, though Emma still finds reason enough to curl up close to Graham on the couch. She’s gone in minutes, fading fast into sleep and into dreams with her head pillowed on his shoulder. He's comfortable in a way she can't describe, almost...almost like this is familiar. Like they've done this before. In sleep, in dreams, she thinks she remembers the exact when and how and why - but the reasons leave her as soon as she comes back to the waking world.

Graham and Lucy stay until then, and she looks to the pair with bleary eyes. There's a blanket over her, now, one she swears was draped across the back of the couch an hour earlier. And stranger, still, the power's back on - but the votive candles are still burning low on the wick, like Graham had thought to leave them lit. She thinks he'd mentioned something about it before she'd nodded off, had said something about how his mother used to light a candle to keep the nightmares away. Pessimist that she was, she'd murmured that that would be ridiculous and then settled her head on his shoulder. Ridiculous or not, no haunting visions had followed her into dreams, this time. But she still feels a sort of phantom ache in her chest when she sees Graham sat before her, now. Because he's not supposed to be here. This she knows with perfect clarity - and she wants him to stay. 

Thoughts slow to form words and words slow to form sentences, she lets her hand fall away from his heart (it's beating, and he's really _here_ ). Something inside of her breaks, screams, shatters a bit at that thought, because she knows that there was a time where it didn't. She knows it with her whole soul. She shakes the thought off long enough to ask if the two of them would like to stay for dinner, as if the German Shepherd laying by their feet can really reply. To her credit, Lucy  _does_ bark in response, but Emma's not really sure that it was in answer to her question.

And Graham, being as impossible as he is, smiles at her and murmurs, “Here I thought you’d ask if I ‘d like to stay forever.”

"That would be ridiculous." It would be and it is, but Emma moves to kiss him, then, anyway, if only to wipe the goofy grin off his face. His hands find her hair and hers find his shoulders as they lean towards each other, into each other. Magic seems to hum in the air between them, whole living room charged with it as Emma moves towards him. She knows what he feels like, what he tastes like - as though she’s lived it before. And for a crazy second before their lips meet, before her eyes close, she thinks she has.

It doesn’t quite work out as planned, though, because she’s this close - _this bloody close_ \- to kissing him when she hears Henry’s key slide into the lock. Dammit.

Graham just smiles at her, then, shrugging as if to say, “what’re you gonna do?” before he goes to get the door. And the sight of him and Henry together, talking, laughing, joking together as her son races for the Christmas decorations and Lucy barks and chases after him…well, it’s a lot. But it’s a _good_ a lot, and she thinks she kind of likes it a little.

…Or maybe she likes it a lot.

Sometimes, in love, she’s willing to admit things like that. (Just not out loud. Never out loud.)

* * *

 

At an antique's shop across the East River, an M.E. with dark hair, intense eyes, and an old-world charm about him crosses the room to get the door. The Detective on the other side of the glass smiles and closes her eyes when his lips meet her cheek. She's holding out a two-hundred year old pocket watch he doesn't take right away, perhaps because he's found other places his lips could meet, touch.

**Author's Note:**

> Because the world so needed more AU Season 3B Gremma and more almost-fluffy Mortinez, of course.


End file.
